So, my wife and her family (primarily her, her sister, and her brother) have a lawn-care business and they've had the bid for our church and the parsonage for the last year. My wife and I (read: I) took it over several months back because we kind of needed the extra cash from it to make ends meet and it was just perfect. So, all is well! It is bid every year and it recently came up for bid again. It's kind of a tough situation because the church has our bid in the monthly business report (by law, being a non-profit), so everyone knows what our bid is to begin with. That kind of makes the bidding process tough for the one who has the bid... Essentially, we're forced to lower our bid every year if we want to keep it until there's no longer any profit to be made. Well, moving forward a few weeks, I found out that a guy who my wife's father grew up with (and was actually considered to be his best friend) under-bid us. When I say under-bid us, I don't mean he bid a lot less, I mean he under-bid us just enough to win the bid (clarifying that it wasn't in an effort to save the church money, it was just to beat us). The guy is very well-off, restores antiques as a hobby (not a cheap hobby from what I understand), has a couple mustangs, etc... Needless to say, he doesn't want for much. He also knows that my wife's family's business is struggling (which has a direct effect on her and I) and we just had our first baby. So, he basically took food off of my table just to make a few hundred bucks a month. Now, don't get me wrong, if I was just under-bid by someone I don't know, or even someone I'm not close to, or if our bid was unreasonable (which it's not, it's actually bid much lower per-hour than all of our other yards), I would not have a problem with that! After all, that's what the bidding process is all about... But dang, my wife's father's best friend? A (former) friend of the family? Because he did that, I gotta find a way to make up for that lost income. I'll say again, I'm not upset that I was under-bid, I am upset because it was done by a friend of the family who is well-off and knows that we're certainly not.
I'm not looking for sympathy or a pity party, I just need to vent. I can't really vent to many other people because most of my friends outside of BOTL and work go to my church. I'm off of work for a few weeks so can't vent to the guys at work and I'm also not going to create drama in the church. I figured the best people to vent to are my best of friends! Please tell me, and be completely honest (but take it easy on me if you disagree!), am I wrong in taking this personally? Is it wrong for me to look at it as him taking food off of my table selfishly? I understand he has every right to bid, it's an open bid, etc. But, am I wrong in thinking it was wrong in principle for him to do that?
I'm not looking for sympathy or a pity party, I just need to vent. I can't really vent to many other people because most of my friends outside of BOTL and work go to my church. I'm off of work for a few weeks so can't vent to the guys at work and I'm also not going to create drama in the church. I figured the best people to vent to are my best of friends! Please tell me, and be completely honest (but take it easy on me if you disagree!), am I wrong in taking this personally? Is it wrong for me to look at it as him taking food off of my table selfishly? I understand he has every right to bid, it's an open bid, etc. But, am I wrong in thinking it was wrong in principle for him to do that?
